Recorded in 1992-1993 by Drew Canulette at Dogfish and Concert Sound
Mixed by Drew Canulette and Mark Sten at Concert Sound
Released in September 1993 as T/K #93CD-052
Re-issued in July 2008 Reptilicus #002
The Oblivion Seekers used to have a rule. Anytime we recorded an album, we broke up before it came out. The corollary was that a
new band would always be ready with new and unrelated material in time for the record release show. In the spring of 1992 Band
Version #2 was rehearsing the second record before the first one was out. And we should have recorded it right away, too, because
Band Version #2 actually seemed to disintegrate a little more with each rehearsal. But Version #2 was waiting to start recording
until a 100 degree heat wave came along, so the weather could give our rhythm tracks a certain stunned, sluggish quality. I hung
onto them anyway, hoping they'd eventually improve if I kept overdubbing them. This is seriously mistaken, but I believed it for
a reason. I had layered our first LP with redundant guitar tracks because I didn't know any better, and it was kind of fun. Then
Drew kept them in the mix to reinforce basics that weren't always in perfect rhythm, and it seemed to work.
Nothing worked with Spirit of America. T/K heard the rough mixes and turned the record down, hinting broadly that I should have
done something just like the first album again. I took this as an insult and decided to finance the release myself. And make it
twice as long, too. In January of 1993 Drew moved Dogfish's mobile recording truck into the loading bay inside Concert Sound's
cavernous warehouse, turning a live concrete room into a temporary studio where Band Version #3 cut 9 more basics, all of them tight
as skin. Dubbing and mixing were done by April, and the graphics took another 5 months.
T/K still didn't like the record, but they agreed to pick up the manufacturing costs and distribute it as one of their own. Then
they ignored it to death. They accepted 1000 defective discs from the plant (several dB too quiet) and consigned them into some
black hole where they all vanished, except for 80 or 90 copies that I bought back years later for $1.09@ from some cut-out operation.
Now those are gone too, and the original album is out of print. However, a vastly improved re-issue is available now, so buy it
immediately and decide for yourself.
GUNS JUNK AND VOODOO - I broke a string at 2:30, 5 bars before the song ended. It was a pure Oblivion Seekers moment.
(I break a lot of strings.)* We had to leave it in. We turned up my guitar channel at that point
to make sure everyone can hear the string snap.
DOWN IN THE CRACK MINE - Chris Newman made this one. He walked into the studio after 3 months of practice and galvanized
the band by forgetting his part and inventing a new one on the spot. We were so knocked out by the
first run-through, we made him play a live guitar solo on the next one. That's the take we kept, with
the only live lead ever on an Oblivion Seekers record.
PRISON BLUE - After 8 hours at his day job and 4 more in the studio, Moen sounds exhausted. The rhythm keeps slowing
down and then lurching back up to speed when he catches himself crashing. It's funny. It's stupid. This
whole song is stupid except for a guitar break that would have been stupid too, if I'd only understood at
the time that stupidity is the key to the narrator's interior life.
MAGIC / I NEEDED YOU - I wrote these two back-to-back and made a point of not finishing either one, thinking to myself, yeah . . .
now that's art. They're so much more effective as quick pencil sketches.
RIDER - Tom Pig in a maelstrom of chaos, with three of us sweating for an hour to defeat the tuning lock on his
guitar and replace a broken string. Once we fixed it he breezed through his lead in 5 minutes.
NO TEARS, NOT TONIGHT - It takes the Oblivion Seekers a long time to mix down a song. This involves repetitive listening, which can
gradually dull everyone's critical faculties as they unconsciously get used to flaws in the mix, which eventually
stop sounding like flaws. That's apparently what happened to Drew while we were mixing No Tears, and he ended up
tuning out the fact that the snare drum was way too loud. I heard it but I thought it sounded fine, and I didn't
mention it because then he would have turned the volume down, so I let him finish the mix and burn a master before
I pointed it out. He insisted on correcting the mix and burning a new master, but I knew I was going to use the
first one. Unfortunately for posterity, John Golden caught the flaw when he re-mastered the album for its 14-song
re-issue in 2008, and he brought the snare back down to a respectable level. It hadn't occurred to me that this
might happen, or I would have told him to leave it too loud. I feel so bad about the whole thing, I'm making the
original version available here as a free download.
THE LAST SUMMER - With the only acoustic guitar ever on an Oblivion Seekers record. It's an Animal House reference, right?
John Belushi and the folkie? On the stairway?
THE PRICE - This one was a challenge. We had to play it with majesty and abandon and still not get lost. I didn't want to be distracted by
counting out all the chord cycles in my head, and I sure wasn't going to sing it while I was playing, so instead I laid out 9 stripes
of duct tape on the warehouse floor in front of me, and counted chords by moving my foot to the next stripe at the end of each cycle.
When I ran out of tape it was time for the next part of the song.
It was almost midnight when we finally locked into a take that felt good all the way through, right up until it fell apart in the last
20 seconds. We couldn't face the prospect of doing the song again. It was time to admit defeat and go home and beat up the kids.
Then Drew came out of his control room smiling like Buddha and bluffing like the Wizard of Oz, saying maybe - just maybe - he could
fix it - if his deck could handle it - there was a chance he could overdub a new ending by punching in the entire band, 10 channels
all at once. So we fell in playing along with the tape as it neared the 4:34 mark - check it out - the last transition in the song,
where Drew hit the RECORD button like a Navy sniper as we rolled through with a new ending. The seam is only audible if you know it's
there, so pretend I didn't tell you.
* And you'd break a lot too, if you were strung at 54-46-36-28-18-12. I change strings before every session and every show, and I
still break a lot of strings.
SPIRIT OF AMERICA - Musician's
Credits
Mark Sten, John Moen, Jim Talstra, Rob Landoll, Chris Newman, Brian Berg, Heidi Hellbender, Rebecca Gates, T. Pig Champion and
Leslie Uppinghouse
Choir = Rebecca, Jim, Debbie Smith & Saaela Abrams
BASIC TRACKS
* Drums - John / Bass - Jim / Guitars - Sten, Rob + Chris
K Drums - John / Bass - Jim / Guitars - Rob + Chris / Rhodes piano - Sten
# Drums - John / Bass - Jim / Guitars - Berg + Sten
OVERDUBS
All Keys - Sten
# 1 GUNS JUNK & VOODOO = BGVox - John + Choir / Gtr Fills + Solo - Berg
* 2 CRACK MINE = Gtr Solo - Chris (Live from basic)
* 3 BOUNTY HUNTER = BGVox - Heidi + John / Gtr Fills - Chris + Berg /
Rhthm Gtr - Chris
# 4 PRISON BLUE = BGVox - Sten / Fem Vox - Rebecca / Gtr Fills - Sten /
Gtr Solo - Berg / Harmonica - Jim / Feet - Choir
* 5 YOU DON'T OWE THE WORLD A THING = BGVox - Heidi / Gtr Fills - Sten /
Gtr Solo - Rob
# 6 OBSESSION = BGVox - John + Sten / Gtr Fills + Solo - Berg
* 7 MAGIC = BGVox = Heidi + John + Sten / Gtr Fills - Rob + Sten
K 8 I NEEDED YOU = BGVox - Heidi + John / Gtr Fills - Chris + Rob
# 9 TRUE LOVE = BGVox = Sten / Gtr Fills + Solo - Sten
# 10 RIDER = BGVox - John / Gtr Solo - Pig / Rhthm Gtrs - Sten
# 11 HEAD HUNTER IN HIGH HEELS = BGVox - Chris / Gtr Fills - Berg
# 12 NO TEARS = BGVox - John + Sten + Leslie / Gtr Fills - Berg + Sten
# 13 THE LAST SUMMER = BGVox - John + Sten / Gtr Fills - Berg + Sten
# 14 THE PRICE = BGVox - John + Berg + Sten / Gtr Fills - Berg + Sten